


The language of colors

by bloodandcream



Series: Aesthetics [5]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe, Aromantic Dean, Asexual Castiel, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-25
Updated: 2015-07-25
Packaged: 2018-04-11 02:08:43
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,277
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4416950
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bloodandcream/pseuds/bloodandcream
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Most people make an impression like a color, strung together frames of movement and disjointed times and places that become a whole, there’s a certain palette to people. It’s like an aftertaste. An impression left on the back of the retina of the whorl of their energy. Most people come and go like a flower plucked and wilted, they only last so long before they move on. There’s a particular sadness to this sort of transience that breeds a sense of isolation, a desire to peel apart the first layer of impression that has left an afterimage and discover all the layers underneath. Like walls that have been painted over time and again, peeling to illustrate their history in the colors left behind.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The language of colors

The first time that Castiel met Dean, standing on the concrete second floor walkway of the apartment complex with worry lodged tight in his throat because Castiel was rapidly running out of options, Dean burst like a bright bloom of orange when he opened the door and greeted Castiel. He was the passion and the frenzy of saturated reds tempered with the pure energy of yellow that is both soft and bright. With ready hands to pull Castiel in and honeyed words to convince him that this was a good idea, Dean was a saturated hue he couldn’t look away from.

Most people make an impression like a color, strung together frames of movement and disjointed times and places that become a whole, there’s a certain palette to people. It’s like an aftertaste. An impression left on the back of the retina of the whorl of their energy. Most people come and go like a flower plucked and wilted, they only last so long before they move on. There’s a particular sadness to this sort of transience that breeds a sense of isolation, a desire to peel apart the first layer of impression that has left an afterimage and discover all the layers underneath. Like walls that have been painted over time and again, peeling to illustrate their history in the colors left behind. 

Most people, you don’t get to see more than a color or two as they move quickly through your life. Sometimes, Castiel wonders what color he is to other people. But he moves through other’s lives and hardly settles, a background character, invisible most of the time. Away from his family for so long and just starting to find his own path, there weren’t a whole lot of colors to his life.

Then Dean happened.

He enjoyed the lively burst of Dean’s orange presence. Busy with school though, and uncertain of his standing, he tried to keep out of Dean’s way in the small apartment that they shared. He caught glimmers of color and complexity from his room mate in the times they crossed paths, wisps of safflower curiosity and tentative buttercup inquisitions like the petals of a flower unfolding. 

Their schedules did not mesh very well, and Castiel was mindful of Dean’s overnight work. But it seemed the more quiet he tried to be, the louder Dean was in order to cross the spaces between them. He tried to feed Castiel, ask about his schoolwork, give him tips where to find the cheapest laundromat. Dean was a thoughtful person, considerate as the soft calm of lavender. 

As Castiel let himself be pulled closer, he learned more. About Dean’s own family, his pride a riot of daffodil yellow any time he talked about his brother with a wide smile and energetic hands illustrating his words in motion. Dean was a kinetic creature of movement and action. 

There were quiet moments too, in the early hours of morning when Castiel’s day was just beginning and Dean’s day was winding down, when they were both not quite awake and frequently Dean was drunk as well, and in these moments they would talk quietly of heavy things that pressed mossy green around them shadowed and pliant. Castiel was wary of taking Dean’s secrets in these moments but it was the only time Dean gave them and the more he let unfurl like fern plants the closer they grew. 

Dean took Castiel to Sam’s graduation. And Dean came to Castiel’s. Sometimes, there were bruises under his eyes that were heavy like the plum purple of his responsibility, but he always made time for those he cared about. It took Castiel a while to realize, but he was one of those people that Dean cared about. And after he graduated, he didn’t want Dean to pass from his life and leave only a fuzzy black and white after image. 

Dean bloomed like a peach-orange rose when Castiel asked if they could find another apartment together, something pale and flushed pink beneath the skin. Castiel wasn’t certain if he was merely seeing what had already been there or if something was changing as well in Dean as it was between the two of them. But his colors seemed to mellow and lighten. Perhaps it was age, maturity. It was a spectrum shift. Or maybe Castiel had tilted to the side and his eyes had changed. Maybe both. 

The first time that Castiel was so brazen to dare ask Dean pose nude - and even in a fit of boldness, to masturbate for him - Dean’s energy tinged hazy with a virginal magenta flush of curiosity and hesitation. For as bold as he was with others, familiar unapologetic ochre tones, he seemed to stumble around Castiel. 

Yet he offered himself like the promising stretch of endless azure horizons. Castiel loved the calm cool cerulean that Dean’s presence often invoked. When he had settled comfortable and reclined in an easy quiescence that Castiel strived to develop, Dean was a vivid sort of blue. He was a comfort, a balm. 

The times that Dean was unsatisfied with Castiel’s undemanding ways, he would demand attention with glaring displays. Like a peacock preening, cyan and jade and gold. Ornamented authority. After the routine became rutted between them, Dean grew bold. He asked to be drawn. He asked for Castiel’s attention. He basked in it. 

Cassie was a sweet girl. She was sunflower saturated and sunshine brilliant, a good match for Dean. But Dean didn’t go out with her, he brought her in. To their space, to their apartment. Castiel wasn’t certain what Dean meant. He figured that most likely Dean was uncertain as well. But after enough time in each other’s company, and enough bottles of wine, Castiel decided that he very much would like to see the two of them together. How their colors would blend, what they could create with their bodies.

She was dark and graceful and slender to Dean’s broad, strong body. Their colors were vivid and beautiful, swirling tangerine and gleaming golden. Shining. They let him in, to their secret world that Castiel would always feel an outsider on, as though perhaps he were trespassing, but here between the three of them he observed and recorded. Captured with his camera when his hands were too wine happy to draw a straight line. And he felt a part of their union. The understanding between them in the language of bodies and the sanguine colors of passion. They drew him in and Castiel knew then that he wanted to witness this, to know every color and every angle and every shade of Dean’s existence. 

Perhaps after all the years Castiel's favorite color is that pale blush of pink like cherry blossoms that spread across Dean’s cheeks in the gentle yellow light of early mornings together. Waking up next to Dean, breathing even and relaxed bodies tangled at the arms and legs, they often lingered together there in the comfort of blankets and the small world they’d nurtured together. And Dean, unguarded on waking, was easy to reach for Castiel and place hands upon his body in warmth and comfort for the sole sake of contact. 

His cheeks would flush pink and his breath would huff in amusement as Castiel arched in to his touch. The charged energy of uncertainty was gone now for they knew and they understood. It was the palest blush, quiet and sweet, when they kissed and when they caressed one another for the pleasure of knowing. For the warmth, for the love of it. Of each other. 

Castiel was certain, then, that he was cherry blossom pink as well.


End file.
